I’m new for your forum. I’ve read a good deal of topics relating to choosing proper DVD recorder for home use, have got a lot of information, but still have some questions, the answers for which I didn’t find yet.
I’m going to buy DVD recorder too, but still didn’t make my choice. Sure, I’d like to have Plextor, but it’s too expensive for me. For the moment I’ve narrowed my choice to Pioneer, ASUS and Teac, but this is not the final decision.
Many discussions on forum were about DVDs from NEC, BENQ, Pioneer, Plextor. Gushing and criticism. But very few (maybe even none) were mentioning such manufacturers as Teac, ASUS. Why this unpopularity? They are not represented so massivly on the market or they are really not worth of mentioning due to some reason? Could anybody give me directions where I can get some information of these drives? Some reviews, discussions, maybe some happy owners of these brands will say the word?
Any information on this, please
Thanks!

The Asus 1604 is a relabeled Pioneer 108. The Asus 1608 is a relabeled Pioneer 109. I seem to recall that at some point in the past Teac was relabeling Liteon drives, but I don’t know what they’re selling now.

Yeah, TEAC used to have excellent products back in the time of CD recorders. I used to own three TEAC products (CD-540E - a CD-ROM drive, and two of their CD (re)writers - CD-W516EB and CD-W540E). All of them were great products, and the latter I consider to be one of the best CD-RW drives. Unfortunately, after that last drive, they started to re-label drives from other manufacturers…

p.s. All of these drives are still functioning exceptionally, one is in my brother’s rig, the other two I gave to some friends…

Thanks for all the answers! I forgot to say which exactly models I’d prefer from each of the mentioned manufacturers: I don’t have much of choice, the best hardware store we got here may offer just 1…2 models of each manufacturer. For ASUS I can choose from variously colored 1608, Teac presented with 516GB, and Pioneer with 109. The largest choice is for NEC: 2510, 3500 and 3520. Since ASUS 1608 is the same Pioneer 109 (maybe even better, as was noted), my choice narrows a bit. And I’d like to hear some more of the Teac 516G. Has anybody this model here? Please share your opinions.
Thanks!